Hello fellow food and wine lovers! I'm a passionate foodie and wino with an education in both, who can't wait to share everything I know with you. I'll try not to ever use snooty words like oenophile and gastronome if you promise to visit this blog frequently to learn, laugh and love everything about food and wine.
Surprisingly I'm a Math/Econ major who has primarily worked in banking, but I've always found a way to dabble in the food and wine industry. As I child, I grew up in my mother's kitchen, and was honored at some pre-teen age, to give up observing and gain the job of grating cheese. With a firm belief that cheese makes every dish (in fact everything!) better, my love cooking was born. At some point in my teens, I learned that by helping cook, I could avoid doing dishes. As the oldest of four sisters, there was plenty of opportunity for selecting your task. Setting the table and cleaning the dishes were both things I could get out of by cooking. No two days made better use of that insight, than Thanksgiving and Christmas. On these two days cooking usually ends in the morning, while both setting up and cleaning seem to last all night. By the time that pie was being cut, I could retire with my dad and uncles with a great big glass of red wine. My dad thought it was fun to pour me multiple wines to see if I could pick the most expensive of the bunch. I began to learn to differentiate quality (through the eyes of price) and became obsessed with learning more.
As a senior in college at UC Santa Barbara, when I finally turned 21, I took wine-tasting. I think I actually got a half credit for taking that class. It was predominantly wine drinking, but the instructor did make us listen to a 1/2 hour of lecture before we started to taste. I’m sure not one of those beach-going students would ever have absorbed what he had to say if he'd allowed us to start tasting right away. In those brief lectures, I learned that there was much more to wine than Cabernet and Chardonnay and I fell in love with Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc. My favorite at the time was a Sauvignon Blanc by Sanford in a beautiful flowery bottle with a pink foil cap (it is, by the way, appropriate to pick wine based on the label, no matter how much you know).
Following college, I moved out to DC and worked for the Federal Reserve. My government job did not afford me a high salary, but did leave me time to enroll in the evening culinary program at the L’Academie of Cuisine. At the culinary school I learned to make soufflés, flip omelets, and cut apart an entire side of lamb, but most importantly, I got insight from the chefs on where to eat, and what to drink. I started volunteering with a class taught by “The Food Guy” and “The Wine Guy”, I had my first taste of foie gras (which I didn't like at the time) and through the unfortunate loss of a bet, missed my first chance to taste the highly touted Sauterne, Chateau Y’quiem. I did, however, have my first opportunity to taste an Amarone by Masi (a famously delicious and overly bold, pricey Italian wine). A new favorite and a fascination with Italy was beckoning me.
I traveled to Italy with my parents where wine still grew on vines (not on trees) but it was everywhere. People drank a glass with lunch and a few with dinner, and it didn’t cost a fortune. At St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marcos) I found a little cellar, just below the street level where you could fill up any container you had with the wine they had to sell. I filled up my water bottle for $3/ liter. Once back home, I tried to find something at Trader Joe’s that was remotely close to as inexpensive and still as delicious. I failed miserably, but I did learn that you can find pretty good wine at pretty good prices. At the time Zinfandel was one of those wines. 7 Deadly Zins was a clear favorite.
After two years in DC, I moved out to California to start a new job at Wells Fargo. The job was in San Francisco, a city with more restaurants than parking spots and the freshest ingredients in the country. With its proximity to Wine Country (which at the time was pretty much Napa and Sonoma and has now expanded much farther in every direction), the job (location) was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, the job itself was pretty boring, but one night , at a tasting for Beaulieu Vineyard I mentioned to the staff that I had a hankering to work in a tasting room and was pouring behind the BV counter the following Saturday. I learned most of what I know from the staff there. They were knowledgeable about everything from grape growing to winemaking, to winetasing, and their knowledge spanned the globe. I gave tours about the winemaking process and educated beer drinkers and wine lovers alike on what and how to taste. I loved teaching people about something that made them so happy to learn.
Two and a half years of Saturdays in the tasting room went by before I grew weary of working six days a week. I also had so much wine in my little apartment, as a result of my incredible discount, that it was time to take a moment to drink it. I was really sad to leave, but I was excited about what the next adventure might be. About a year later, I enrolled in the Certified Wine Professional Program at the Culinary Institute of America. I had enough vacation saved up to take half of the month-long intensive program, with one day leftover to also take the exam a week later. I rented a small cottage on the south end of Napa and immersed myself in wine. They say that's the best way to learn, right? We spent mornings tasting wine (spitting it into spittoons) and afternoons studying regions, production methods, and the business of wine. We went on several field trips vineyards, wineries, and wine shops to learn hands on about everything we were reading. It was incredible. The evenings consisted of some studying wine at local restaurants, dining with other students, where we could taste wines from regions all over the world, and practice our wine pairing techniques. Other nights involved absorption of books and articles that were recommended by our team of wine educators (my favorite wine book for its readability and thoroughness is "The Wine Bible" by Karen McNeil, who happened to be my favorite teacher). Test day came. I passed with flying colors, and now I have a degree in wine My greatest desire is that you will enjoy learning from me as I continue to learn and enjoy wine, food, and life!
Enough about me. I'll finish this post later. Tomorrow I'll give you some tips for ways to save a wine once you've opened it. Not that there is usually any left, but just in case you want to open one more at the end of the night that you really shouldn't, and you just can't finish!
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